Page 13 of It's One of Us

“That case is closed. I had nothing to do with Melanie’s death.”

“Oh, we know. But the similarities are uncanny. And your son—”

“Quit calling him my son. I don’t know this person. He is yoursuspect. And I don’t care for the insinuations you’re making. I know nothing about this, and I want to be kept out of it, do you understand? I won’t let you go ruining my life to chase down a dead-end lead.”

Both cops watch him, a thousand times more interested now.Stop reacting. You’re making yourself look guilty.

He blows out a breath. “I apologize. This is hard for me. Olivia...she doesn’t need any drama right now.”

“Fair enough. Is there anything you can tell us, anyone who might be able to help? There’s gotta be a mother.” Osley leans forward with a conspiratorial grin. “You know it only takes once. Could be a drunk hookup. Could be a short relationship. Could be you pushed someone into it, and she was scared afterward...”

“Except I don’t make drunk hookups. And I don’t force myself on women. I’m a married man, for Christ’s sake. I want to help. I really do. I just don’t—”

But he does. Oh, God. He does. He needs the cops out of here, now.

Moore catches his hesitation. “Mr. Bender?”

“It’s nothing. Truly, I’m sorry. Please let me know what happens. I’d like to...well, I’d like to know who he is, regardless of what he’s done. I’m so sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. Please, if you can avoid dragging my family into this, I’d appreciate it. Olivia is having a hard enough time without having this thrown in her face.”

“That’s not really up to us, Mr. Bender. Your wife does know about your history in Chapel Hill, doesn’t she?”

There’s the shot across the bow he’s been waiting for. Chummy it up, then strong-arm him into giving them something, anything. An oblique threat to ruin his life, all he’s gutted it out for, the toehold he’s gained in the community, into the lives of his students, his family, his secret readers. He’s done a damn good job of becoming as anonymous as possible. A few well-placed words and poof, everything reverts, and you are again the person from that horrific year, the object of scorn and derision, the one women cross the street to avoid walking past. People forget they enjoy having you over for dinner, instead want to gossip and scheme and point fingers.

“Of course she does. It was national news, for a time. That’s how Olivia and I found each other again. She knew I had nothing to do with Melanie’s death.”

“Want to run us through what happened there?”

“In Chapel Hill? Not particularly. That part of my life is over, and I prefer to keep it that way. You have all you need from the files, I’m sure.”

End this.

He stands. The detectives gather their things, drop cups in the sink, leave cards on the table.

“We’ll be in touch,” Moore says, eyes cold as the ocean. “And if you do remember anything, Mr. Bender, you give us a call, okay? A woman’s dead, and we need to find her killer. That’s all we care about.”

“That’s all I care about, as well.”

He waits until their car has turned at the corner before shutting the door and quietly making his way to his office in the backyard.

He will not think about how similar the crimes are. Will not think about a girl, found dead in a lake, more than twenty years ago, and a woman, now, also found dead in a lake, only miles from where he is standing.

How long was Beverly Cooke in the water? He wanted to ask details, wanted to know more, but he couldn’t ask, not without looking weird, or guilty.

They’d sensed his eagerness to hear more, hadn’t they? Moore had, at least. He needs to be careful around her. He can imagine just how easily she can spin lies from truths.

No, he has bigger problems.

The combination safe in the closet of his office is keyed to the date of Olivia’s first miscarriage. Morbid as hell, he knows, but a sequence no one outside the family would ever latch onto.

He moves aside the stack of emergency cash, the contracts, the envelope with the small gold ingots his mother left him in her will, the gun, and pulls out a file from the bottom of the stack, one he never in a million years thought to need again, cursing himself.

So naive. You’ve always been so naive. Of course this could happen.

The file is laminated, has a cheery yellow cover with a hand-drawn house, smoke rising from the chimney, a white picket fence, and two genderless people in shadow, holding hands. A child’s drawing, commissioned from an adult artist, he’s sure of that.

The red print is subdued, elegant in contrast with the childish drawing.

Winterborn Life Sciences.